Scott Baker is, and has been, an active member of the information technology, data analytics, data management, and data protection disciplines for longer than he is willing to admit. In his present role at Hitachi, Scott is a master “explainer” and responsible for the product marketing division for Hitachi’s Emerging Business Portfolio (Hitachi Content Portfolio, Hitachi Data Protection Products and Solutions, and Hitachi Content Intelligence). In the IT community, Scott is a regular guest speaker at industry events, blogger, author and contributor.
Scott is a VMware Certified Professional, recognized as a vExpert, VMWorld speaker, VMUG keynote speaker, and a contributing author of the book Virtualization Changes Everything. Scott has been a panelist on topics related to storage, cloud, information governance, data security, infrastructure standardization, and social media topics. His educational background includes an MBA, Masters in Computer Science, and Bachelors in Computer Science.

Dr. Belanger is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Stevens Institute of Technology. He is also Leader of IEEE’s Big Data Initiative (bigdata.ieee.org). Prior to Stevens, he spent 33 years in research at Bell and AT&T Labs, including roles as: Chief Scientist; V.P. Information, Software and Systems Research; and Head, Software Engineering Research. In 1995 he founded the AT&T InfoLab, a very early research and development organization for big data.
Awards: 1998, AT&T Science and Technology Medal for contributions in very large scale information mining technology; 2006 AT&T Fellow for “lifetime contributions in software, software tools, and information mining”; and 2009 he received the IEEE Communications Society Industrial Innovator Award.

Mr. Bridgewater has served at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection since 1986, and has been IT Project Manager at the Division of Information Technology for the last 18 years.
As IT Project Manager, Mr. Bridgewater oversees a team of IT professionals that are responsible for working with every major Program Unit across the Department to modernize regulatory processes and drive efficiencies through the implementation of technology solutions. During Mr. Bridgewater’s tenure as IT Project Manager, the Department of Environmental Protection has undergone a complete transformation in its ability to service the needs of citizens and the regulated community it serves. The Department’s major Divisions, which were once forced to operate in silos, now share a common enterprise system – the New Jersey Environmental Management System (NJEMS) – providing an integrated experience for the nearly 2,500 department staff that log into the system daily. NJEMS has enabled the centralized management of over 1,200 regulatory processes, nearly 12 million regulatory activities such as permits, violations, and enforcement actions, and has processed over $1.4 billion in revenue generated from regulatory activities.
In recent years, the department’s public-facing web portal – the Regulatory Service Portal (RSP) – has processed over 350,000 electronic submissions for licenses and environmental permits across over 200 e-government services, including roughly 50,000 reports of environmental incidents. To better service requests for Open Public Records, a system was implemented that has processed over 160,000 requests to date, and the Department’s open data portal – Data Miner - has made over 650 live reports available online.
Mr. Bridgewater also oversees NJDEP’s Internet and Intranet sites and operations, as well as its enterprise content management/imaging system and operations, which have made nearly 400,000 paper records available for internal reporting.
Mr. Bridgewater manages over 20 IT systems design, development and implementation projects, and is currently leading the Department’s business intelligence initiative, which seeks to harvest the department’s enterprise system data to support strategic initiatives and further collaboration across the department’s various Divisions.

An educator and technologist for nearly 30 years, Dr. Edward Chapel is currently the Senior Vice President of NJEDge.Net, New Jersey’s Research and Education Network. NJEDge is a not-for-profit, shared services consortium formed by the New Jersey Council of College and University Presidents. It provides most of the colleges and universities in the State, as well as many k-12, government, healthcare and non-profit enterprises with access to secure Internet, peering with Internet2 and other major content providers to support their operational and strategic objectives. NJEDge also provides a broad array of educational and professional development offerings and events to advance the use of high performance computing and networking across the State. He served as the Chief Information Officer at Montclair State University and Fairleigh Dickinson University for fourteen years and five years, respectively, prior to joining NJEDge.

Vinod Chavan is a Director Cloud Sales and Solutioning Worldwide, for IBM Cloud and is responsible establishing new strategic business lines. Vinod has demonstrated this throughout his career, working and thinking alongside clients, offering them insights, and leveraging IBM’s enterprise-wide capabilities to create solutions that far exceed initial expectations. His tremendous breadth of knowledge across IBM software and services offerings enables him to apply this knowledge to solve partner and customer business problems. He has brought this experience to bear with IBM cloud computing, where he is leading the creation of replicable and reusable solutions, helping customers succeed in their move to cloud thinking and cloud deployments. Vinod’s deep client experience comes from 30 years with variety of successful engagements in direct consultative solution sales, deep services experience with multi-cultural large project teams, and building alliances & partnerships. Vinod is driving the adoption of cloud starting with Life Sciences based cloud deployments and moving to those with complex regulatory requirements (GxP, Fedramp, DoD Impact level 3 and beyond). Vinod serves on Industry Advisory Board of University of Central Florida – Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Vinod has a master’s degree in engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai, India and Bachelor of Engineering degree from Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute, Mumbai, India.

Branislav Dimitrijevic is a Senior Research Engineer/Scientist at NJIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He has been a member of NJIT’s transportation research staff since 2003. His expertise is in the areas of transportation systems analysis, transportation planning, network optimization, and multimodal freight transportation. He also has extensive experience with GIS data development and analysis. He is currently involved in several research efforts as part of NJIT’s ITS Resource Center, as well as FHWA-funded Transportation Economic and Land Use System (TELUS) Program. Some of his recently completed and ongoing projects include development of TELUS land use model, performance-based planning and programing tools for TELUS applications, Analysis of Travel Time Estimation Technologies in New Jersey, Evaluation of Video Analytics for traffic operations applications, adaptive signal control concept development, connected vehicle application concept development, and concept of operations for active traffic demand management and integrated corridor management. Mr. Dimitrijevic has an adjunct teaching appointment with NJIT’s Interdisciplinary Program in Transportation and currently teaches Introduction to Urban Transportation Planning. Mr. Dimitrijevic holds an M.S. degree in Transportation from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and a Diploma in Transportation Engineering from Belgrade University, Serbia.

Mr. Josh Dixon started his career in the U.S. Marine Corps as an infantry rifleman. After completing college and officer training course, he received a commission as an Air Defense Control Officer. He served a tour in Iraq as a Provisional Riffle Platoon Commander under the Provost Marshal Office. After returning from his time overseas, he transitioned into a research position at the Naval Postgraduate School. Following the research and education tour, he joined the acquisition community at the Marine Corps System Command. After a career in the military, he joined Samsung Electronics out of South Korea in support of mobility solution development for government customers around the world. This past summer, he moved back to the US and now focuses on mobility solution development for US Government organizations. He holds two Master’s degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School in Computer Science and an MBA in Information Systems Management. He’s still working on a Ph.D. in Software Engineering.

Casey is an experienced eGovernment manager with 12 years in eGovernment operations, and has been working with the State of New Jersey under contract to further their online eGovernment efforts for the last seven years. His team is responsible for the launch of dozens of custom-built online applications and backend payment processing solutions. Casey brings a wide range of skills to his role, including business development, team leadership, finance, and project management for online applications and website development. The public-private partnership between the State and the NICUSA-New Jersey team has yielded several online services that allows citizens and businesses to more easily interact with state government, including a comprehensive suite of business services, temporary vehicle tags, online notary applications and crash report requests.

CTO, Ascolta (a wholly owned subsidiary of ViON)

Clint Green’s role as CTO includes the overview of the current software platform leveraged by Ascolta, ViON’s wholly owned subsidiary, along with the solutions Ascolta provides within the cyber and financial markets, focusing on a strong understanding of how Ascolta’s customers and partners pursue their business today. Prior to joining Ascolta, Clint served as Vice President and CTO of L-3 National Security Solutions, VP of Global Services for Koverse, Director of Big Data Solutions for Iron Bow Technologies, Senior Innovation Engineer and Senior Infrastructure Architect for Data Tactics Corporation, and he also held several positions with EMC, including Senior Technology Consultant: Federal Backup, Recovery and Archive for Cloud Optimized Storage. Clint’s IT specialties include Big Data, Analytics, Hadoop, Networking and Disaster Recovery among others. Mr. Green also serves in a unique role in providing technical insight to ViON, Ascolta’s parent company.

Deputy Director Steven Gutkin, was appointed to his current position at the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (OHSP) in August, 2014. From January to August, 2014, Deputy Director Gutkin served as Chief of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Bureau. He began with OHSP in July 2012 in the role of Deputy Chief of the Planning and Project Management (PPM) Bureau. In September of that same year, he was named Chief of the PPM Bureau. Prior to joining OHSP, he served as Executive Director for the Regional Catastrophic Planning Team (NY-NJ-CT-PA) and was responsible for managing more than 20 planners and developing numerous regional disaster plans through FEMA’s Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program. Deputy Director Gutkin previously retired at the rank of Deputy Chief of Police after more than 20 years of service with the Fairfield Police Department. During his tenure there he rose up through the ranks and spent the bulk of his career managing the criminal investigations and professional standards divisions. He also served as Deputy OEM Coordinator. Deputy Director Gutkin is a member of FEMA’s National CPG & PPD-8 working groups, a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), and active member of both the FBI National Academy Associates (FBINAA) and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). He is a graduate of the 219th Session of the FBI National Academy, holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Services and is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Homeland Security and Safety Leadership at the George Washington University.

Dr. Rashmi Jain joined the Feliciano School of Business as Department Chair and Professor of Information Management and Business Analytics. Professor Jain received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in technology management from Stevens Institute of Technology. Dr. Jain is a prolific scholar and her research interests intersect systems architecture and design, systems integration, big data and business analytics, and business process analysis and management.
Professor Jain is skilled and committed teacher and has been invited to lecture internationally at Keio University and Shibaura Institute of Technology in Japan, Overseas Chinese Institute of Technology (OCIT) in Taiwan, and the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, among others. Professor Jain also brings deep insight and credibility on the complexities and dynamics of today’s marketplace. Earlier in her career, Professor Jain worked with Accenture, a leading IT consulting company. At Accenture, Dr. Jain consulted for Fortune 100 companies in energy, telecom, utilities and financial services sectors.

Jon Jumento manages the sales engineering practice for Citrix State and Local Government. With over 18 years of experience in the technology industry, Jon has held various positions, including positions in support services, operations, operations management, consulting, and pre-sales. Jon has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Information Technology with a focus on Information Technology Security. He currently specializes in cybersecurity practice, policy and posture.

Vivek Mehta is Director of Operations and Business Development for CGI’s U.S. Northeast Business Unit - New Jersey Account, which is proudly celebrating over 20 years of continuous service to New Jersey’s state and local government agencies. From its account headquarters in Hamilton, NJ, CGI maintains a deep local presence in New Jersey with nearly 100 IT professionals actively supporting clients at the Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Community Affairs, and Ocean County. CGI’s strong history with the State of New Jersey also includes partnerships with the Department of Children & Families, Office of Information Technology, and Treasury Department, including the implementation of the state’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
Mr. Mehta has been devoted to delivery excellence for the State of New Jersey over the last eleven years. As Director of Operations and Business Development, Mr. Mehta has been responsible for developing client engagement strategies that achieve sustainable and organic growth for CGI, by consistently exceeding the expectations of our clients. As a testament to Mr. Mehta’s leadership and commitment to delivery excellence, our New Jersey clients have ranked CGI 9.5 out of 10 in customer satisfaction throughout his tenure as account executive.
In addition to overseeing the account’s business strategy, Mr. Mehta is responsible for customer relationship management, delivery excellence, and the overall financial management of the account. Prior to serving in his current role, Mr. Mehta was the Project Manager for our long-term partnership with the Department of Environmental Protection.
Mr. Mehta earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech, and holds certifications as a Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified ScrumMaster (CSM). He has a wife and two children.

Dr. Richard Novak currently serves as Vice President for Continuing Studies and Distance Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and is responsible for executive leadership for the Division of Continuing Studies (DoCS). The Division is comprised of 20 distinct business units and approximately 140 full-time employees in 20 locations, offering credit and non-credit educational opportunities across the lifespan and across the full calendar year, in face-to-face and online formats. In addition, the Division includes a University hotel and conference center and a fully digital high definition broadcast quality television studio.
Dr. Novak is also an associate member of the graduate faculty for the Rutgers Graduate School of Education, regularly teaching online graduate courses in educational technology. He is a Past-President of UPCEA and recipient of UPCEA’s Walton S. Bittner Award for Imaginative Leadership in the Advancement of Continuing Education and Distinguished Service to the Association. In April 2011 he was awarded the national Excellence in Online Administration award.

Joining Nutanix in January 2014 to lead Alliances, Venugopal Pai has led the company and established partnerships with industry leaders in key sectors of the market to ensure the continued growth of the company, and ensure that Nutanix’s products continue to be best-in-class in delivering unique product capabilities and innovative solutions that meets the needs of the customer and the market. With over 25 years of technology experience with Hitachi Data Systems, Brocade Communications, Oracle Corporation and Riverbed Technology, he brings a wealth of experience in building world-class alliance organizations. Nutanix’s partnership ecosystem today includes strategic partnerships with Dell, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, VMware, Citrix, Splunk, F5 and other industry leaders.

Kumar Rachuri has worked with the State of Ohio as a public servant for 18 plus years and held various leadership roles across five different agencies, including both central services agencies as well as line of business/mission focused agencies.
Most recently, Kumar worked as the CIO for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. As a triple combined agency, OH DJFS houses Medicaid; Welfare; Child Support; Children Services; Child Welfare; Unemployment Compensation and Workforce Development along with administrative and support areas. This agency’s operating budget was in excess of $20 billion dollars and the IT budget was over $275 million dollars per fiscal year, as such the agency’s technology organization was the largest IT organization in a state government agency in the country. Under Kumar’s leadership as CIO, their technology team was recognized for “Excellence in Human Services Technologies” in the category of “Collaboration across Boundaries” by APHSA – ISM 2013.
Prior to OH DJFS, Kumar served at the Ohio Office of Budget and Management (OBM) in a dual role capacity as the CIO and the Director – Strategy and Business Development, Ohio Shared Services Center (OSS). OSS calls for consolidation of state’s fiscal operations from 26 cabinet level agencies to one business center. This project received accolades from notable organizations i.e. Gartner and Harvard Business Review, leading them to write white papers of Ohio’s cutting edge implementation of business process re-engineering eventually. Towards his efforts on technology front, Kumar was recognized as one of the Nation’s Top 25 leaders by Government Technology Magazine in 2011, a distinction given to innovative and visionary leaders as the “Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers” in United States.
After a long and fulfilling career as a public servant Kumar decided make his transition to private sector and accepted a very exciting opportunity at Adobe Systems Inc., in early December 2013 as their Director – Healthcare Innovation, US Public Sector practice. In this role his primary responsibility is to work with the State and Local HHS technology leaders, to align the Adobe products and expertise in resolving the needs of their business challenges.

Elizabeth “Liz” Rowe has proven to be a results driven, customer-focused leader of Information Management, Governance, and Master Data initiatives. She is a strategic thinker and facilitator, and has been the driver of complex enterprise-level information governance and data quality projects through Fortune 100 and globally matrixed organizations, across multiple functional areas and hierarchies.
Liz is now applying her expertise to State government as the first Chief Data Officer for New Jersey, a member of the pioneer wave of CDOs in government. She is tasked with developing enterprise strategy for information and data management across the Executive Branch. Her main focus is to drive consensus regarding Information Governance for Agencies to manage data, based on continuously evolving best practices; and collaborating with Agency leadership to use data management to improve services to citizens.
Prior to joining the State of New Jersey, Ms. Rowe provided the vision and direction for the development of enterprise-level information standards; the design of integrated and coordinated data management processes across multiple functional areas, including: data acquisition, storage, transformation, delivery, access and control, knowledge management, governance; the evaluation and selection of the associated tools and technology; and the structure of the organization required to support and maintain enterprise information governance. Liz brings to State government her years of industry experience with Global Standards, Consulting, Healthcare, Foodservice, Distribution, Oil and Gas, Investment, and Insurance.
Ms. Rowe is a founding member of the isCDO the International Society of Chief Data Officers; and a founding member of two working groups within NASCIO, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers; Privacy and Data Protection, and Data Management Strategy. Liz is also a co-author of the NASCIO Data Strategy Group’s inaugural Executive Issue Brief, “Data: The Lifeblood of State Government.” Most recent Liz was chosen as the winner of a StateScoop 50 Award in the category of Up & Comer.

David is the Group Vice President of Oracle's North America Public Sector Cloud and Infrastructure Solutions Sales Engineering organization. David is a senior technology executive with over 35 years of sales engineering experience spanning multiple global market segments and verticals, including federal, state and local governments. Prior to joining Oracle, David held technology and executive leadership positions with Blue Coat Systems, Tableau Software, EMC, Cisco and others. David is the principal co-author of the 2009 White House OMB “Planning Guide/Roadmap Toward IPv6 Adoption within the U.S. Government” artifact. As a recognized industry thought leader, David shares his vision and strategies in social media, and as an executive speaker on key government technology initiatives including Big Data, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, FedRAMP and Smart Cities.

Michael Stair is a Principal Member of Technical Staff with AT&T’s Chief Security Office. With a current focus on virtualized security technologies and Big Data, he has technical lead roles in AT&T’s Cloud Security and Threat Analytics programs chartered with protecting one of the largest networks in the world. With AT&T for over 12 years, Michael received his B.S. in Computer Science from Mount Saint Mary’s University and M.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University.